Review

Hollow Shift just dropped their new EP WAR, and it might be the most focused thing this Athens duo has put out yet. Jessica Bell and Alexander Zamparas have been building this darkwave and synthwave sound for a while now, and on these three songs it finally feels fully locked in. The EP is built …

This one landed on my radar last night, the way you do when you’re three songs deep into a playlist and stop caring what’s next. “Royal Ruby” is a San Diego rapper’s new single, and it’s not what I expected from the title. I figured maybe a flex track. It’s actually a story song, built …

Finlay Birch has sat on these songs for nearly a decade, and it shows in the best way. Nothing here feels rushed out the door. Weight Will Unwind is his debut album, recorded over ten days on the Isle of Mull, and it has that same unhurried, windswept quality the island is known for. It’s …

Logan Square’s French Inhaler just put out “TV Love”, their debut single, and it’s a tight little gut-punch of a song. Mechanical drums, a bassline that’s doing more melodic work than you’d expect, synths that stay cool and spaced out rather than crowding the mix. Singer Ashvin Prakash sings the whole thing a little detached, …

The title alone got me. There’s no Planet B, that’s the whole point, and somehow Energy Whores turned climate dread into something I actually want on my playlist. The duo behind this is Carrie Schoenfeld and a producer who goes by Grant, and the song splits the difference between their styles. The synths shimmer and …

Okay so the thing nobody tells you about breakup songs is that the good ones are usually a little embarrassed about themselves. This one is and that’s why we love it. Jason McKee’s vocal sits way back in the mix for most of the track, almost mumbling, like he’s talking himself into finishing the thought …

Getting Started is a Chicago five-piece, and “Pistonspeak” is their first new song since their self-titled debut last year. I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting much going in. Debut album, year off, first single back. That formula goes wrong as often as it goes right. What got me was the piano. Eddie O’Connor isn’t just padding …

Here’s the thing about this one: it’s technically about a 19th century photographer, but it doesn’t feel like a history song. Mark Moule wrote the lyrics for a mate’s uni project about Izzy Orlof, the guy who apparently brought the camera to WA. That’s the assignment. What actually comes through on tape is something else. …

The band name sounded like a history podcast and I’m glad it landed on my radar. “The Great Refusal” is the lead single off Motihari Brigade’s upcoming album “Problematic”, and it’s a sharp, riff-heavy track about AI anxiety that somehow doesn’t come off preachy. The guitar work is the star here. There’s a riff early …

Brooklyn R&B artist E.Z.O. dropped a really solid single called “Fiend” back on May 1st and I think it deserves some serious attention. The track heavily channels that smooth energy of early 2000s heavyweights like Donnell Jones and Jagged Edge. The background production comes from Hennen Beats, a producer E.Z.O. discovered while browsing around on …

MASKED EXISTENCE, Vol. 3 has been sitting with me for a bit, and “CLAIM IT ALL” is the one I keep going back to. It’s built around this industrial-leaning modern metal sound that feels genuinely claustrophobic in the best way. The mix is tight and deliberate, like the production itself is part of the point. …

Bury St Edmunds is probably not the first place you’d picture when someone says UK drum and bass. It’s a medieval market town famous mainly for a Bob Marley appearance nobody expected and a Clash gig so chaotic it got live music banned there for twenty years. Consequential is from there. That detail feels right …

Esthy dropped “Bad Habit” on June 6th and wrote, produced, and mixed it herself, which you can actually feel. It doesn’t have that slightly-too-polished quality that happens when too many hands are on a track. The production sits in this late-night, slightly hazy pop space. Not minimal exactly, but nothing’s fighting for attention, and the …

“Wrapped in Warmth” is a beautiful release that you need to hear till the last second. Rebecca Trujillo Vest isn’t trying to knock you sideways. She’s doing something harder: making you actually stop and pay attention to a quiet song. Osmunda Music has been at this a long time, based out of LA but with …

Erik David Hidde has been recording music in his living room in Los Angeles for years. Eleven albums under his old name Prison Escapee, a debut Mohawk Castle record, and now a sophomore album with “In Moonlight” as its closing track. He writes it, records it, mixes it, and masters it. This is impressive. The …

Two hardcore lifers from Houston pick up acoustic guitars and make something genuinely good. That’s the short version. The longer one involves True Detective, Schopenhauer, and a Bandcamp bio that reads “sad music for a$$holes”, which Daniel Austin confirms is funny because it’s true. Austin and Chris have played together since they were teenagers, mostly …

Okay, so I went in knowing basically nothing about Audren, and that’s probably the best way to hear this record. No context, no expectations. Just eleven tracks and a lot of genre-blurring that takes a few songs to get used to. A New Page kicks things off with acoustic guitar and these neoclassical strings that …

Trickshooter Social Club is a Chicago band built around guitarist Larry Liss and singer Steve Simoncic, and this EP sounds like what happens when two guys have been playing together long enough to stop overthinking it. There’s no fussing around with production tricks or fashionable genre tags. They play roots rock, the guitars are loud, …